The Psychology of Music Within Cheerleading

Posted: 12/5/2018; Last Edited: 12/5/2018

By Coach Ryan

Mind Blowing Quote: ““Ah, music," he said, wiping his eyes. "A magic beyond all we do here!” - Albus Dumbledore (J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)

There are very few times during the day where I don’t find myself surrounded by music. I am waking up to music with my alarm, driving to work with music on the radio, switching the song on Pandora in my office, working out to music and listening to music as the team warms up for practice. I often find myself curious as to why we force so much music into our lives, specifically within sports. This subject has always excited me, especially within cheer. Unique to cheer, the presence of music is not only within practice but also within competition. We choreograph entire routines to mashups of various songs, voice overs and sound effects.

Outside of competition, another driving force of this curiosity has come from the seemingly magical correlation between music and the team’s mood. When I cheered at the University of Cincinnati, we were constantly traveling around with a boombox. If the boom box wasn’t playing, we had problems. I remember being in charge of the boom box for several trips and remembering the feeling of power I had over the team’s mood. With each song I DJ’ed, I could feel the energy of my teammates rise up or down. I also have realized that music from past Nationals’ routines can be so triggering: I can remember entire routines simply by hearing one song.

You cannot study this subject without stumbling upon some of the greatest research on the effects of music within sport done by the world-leading researcher on music for performance, Dr. Costas Karageorghis. Dr. Karageorghis is a professor in Sport and Exercise Psychology and the Divisional Lead for Sport, Health and Exercise Sciences at Brunel University London. Dr. Karageorghis, who has authored over 100 studies, says one can think of music as “a type of legal performance-enhancing drug." With such a proclamation, it seems impossible to resist diving deeper into this subject. Imagine the possibilities if you can properly use music to enhance everyone’s abilities.

So is this magic, or is there some actual science behind these observations? This blog will dive into a small portion of the research I have found on the subject. Furthermore, I will present some ideas on how we can use the power of music more effectively within our sport. Below I have identified four main areas where I believe music can help within cheerleading. You may think of others. If you do please contact me, as I would love to hear some of your ideas.

Music in Strength & Conditioning

I cannot remember a team lift without music. Strength coaches have recognized the power of music for a long time. Whether they have understood it or not, there is no doubt music has a positive effect on the energy of a weight room. Dr. Karageorghis states in his research, Music in the exercise domain: a review and synthesis (Part I), “During repetitive, endurance-type activities, self-selected, motivational and stimulative music has been shown to enhance affect, reduce ratings of perceived exertion, improve energy efficiency and lead to increased work output.” According to Health Science Academy, Dr. Karageorghis found one of the key ways music can influence and enhance performance is through dissociation:

"Dissociation through music diverts the mind. Dissociation refers to diverting the mind from sensations of fatigue that creep up and in during performance. Research has repeatedly shown how music can improve performance by drawing one’s attention away from feelings of fatigue and pain when engaged in endurance activities such as running, cycling, or swimming. It’s been shown that listening to music during exercise increases the efficiency of that activity and it postpones fatigue.”

When selecting the music, James Barraclough at Believe Perform states the following:

“When accompanying training and workouts with music, researchers have suggested assembling a wide selection of familiar tracks that meet the following six criteria in order to achieve benefits to performance: (a) strong, energizing rhythm; (b) positive lyrics having associations with movement; (c) rhythmic pattern well matched to movement patterns of the athletic activity; (d) uplifting melodies and harmonies; (e) associations with sport, exercise, triumph, or overcoming adversity; and (f) a musical style or idiom suited to an athlete’s taste and cultural upbringing. Choose tracks with different tempi, to coincide with alternate low-, medium-, and high-intensity training.”

Keep each of these points in mind when selecting music, as each one can have a profound effect on your team.

Another opportunity to apply this concept is during skill clinics. Clinics can be long and grueling especially for the guys and girls on your team. The long hours, combined with strenuous work, make clinics a dreaded day. Lower the fatigue and pain with some motivational and uplifting music. For your recruits, music can also make the clinic fun and lively. They will walk away feeling like the time was well spent. Hopefully, this will result in a returning customer.

Music in Practice

Interestingly, the Health Science Academy states:

“Music evokes emotions that enriches your enjoyment, especially when that song is matched with a triggering emotional memory. Music can boost internal motivation by triggering good emotions, helping you experience much greater pleasure from the activity and thus improving dissociation.”

Have your team list their top three favorite songs and a corresponding positive memory. When your team needs motivation to push through fatigue, you can play from this list of songs. If you believe in ripple effects, even one person’s uplifted mood can raise the abilities of the whole team. You can also have your team list some songs they believe help them achieve different psychological states, such as motivated, relaxed, or focused. You may be surprised to find some similarities within your team and you can create a warm-up playlist that helps get your team mentally ready for the practice ahead.

If you have a young team, it can be especially hard to keep them focused when music is playing during practice. If you think this will be a problem for your team, try playing motivational music during water breaks. Water breaks can serve as a time for rehydration and stress relief from a difficult practice. Assuming you plan your practices ahead of time, you can account for some water breaks and have some songs on hand to play during the break.

Music in Competition

Dr. Karageorghis’ studies found that dissociation with fatigue especially holds true if there is a synchrony between the rhythm of the music and the movements of the athlete themselves. A great example of this, which we can learn from, is in gymnastics. Utah gymnastics team assistant coach and choreographer Meredith Paulicivic, “...helps her gymnasts through music by assigning a character with a backstory that fits the floor music so that the routine tells a story.” While gymnastics is an individual sport, I don’t think the concept should be lost upon cheer teams. Every team has an opportunity to tell a story through their Nationals’ routine. If the team feels a level of ownership within their routine then they will be more motivated to perfect it in practice and have that much more confidence when performing it. This confidence will be apparent to the judges and audience. If you have ever watched a cheerleading competition, you can immediately tell the difference between a confident team and an anxious one.

Donna Snyder, a 27 year veteran in the world of cheer judging , states in a FloCheer interview:

“Music plays a STRONG role in the routine. It sets the pace and flow of the entire routine! The musicality needs to enhance the story being told in the routine. And only use music enhancements, sound effects/voice overs, when appropriate. Too many sound enhancements can take away from the routine.”

If you need more inspiration with this concept, look to our sister sport; dance. They have a strong understanding of storytelling through music. Whether hip hop or jazz, dance does a really good job of connecting the audience and judges with the music and telling very compelling stories.

Well before the National’s season gets moving, sit down with your team and have a meeting about the story you want to tell at Nationals. According to James Barraclough at Believe Perform, factors that seem to influence the motivational qualities of music are tempo (beats per minute), musicality i.e. harmony/melody/rhythm, association (thoughts/feelings/images evoked), familiarity and volume. Have your team select songs with meaning. You can go further by selecting favorite music/movie quotes, school mottoes or even team “power words”. In my final year of competition, our team put together songs and voice overs telling the story of our cheer team. When hearing the music, I felt a strong sense of pride for my university. That year we placed top five, the highest the team had placed in over ten years. A lot of the success was credited to music created by Jessie Spitzer at Cheer.fm.

Since most cheer coaches hire out their music mixing, it is imperative you have a strong relationship with whoever you hire to create the music for the Nationals’ routine. They must have a strong idea of the story your team is trying to tell. If possible invite the artist to some of your Nationals’ practices and have them talk with the team about what they want from the music. If that is not an option, trying FaceTiming them during practice. An artist in tune with the team will be able to effectively match the music with the team’s desired emotions.

Music in Recovery

According to Dr. Janet Zadina:

“...millennials (ages 18-33) are more stressed than older adults. In fact, their stress levels are well above the national average. The factors contributing to that stress level are work and finances. If they are in school, then that would contribute even more to those levels.”

I believe this applies not only to millennials, but also to the up-and-coming generations being recruited today. In college, there is no doubt our student-athletes are stressed. There is more being asked of them than ever before. This amount of stress has dire effects on the product you are trying to create on game day or within a Nationals’ routine. Dr. Zadina also says stress impairs memory and attention which will result in decreased learning; making your practices less effective. As a coach you can get ahead of this with the power of music. Dr. Zadina suggests an idea to enhance the pre-practice physical and mental warm-up.

“Use the first 2-5 minutes to set the table for better learning. First, as {student-athletes} walk in have appropriate music playing. The music should be upbeat and positive with a beat-per-minute a little higher than concentration (70-90 bpm) or at concentration levels (60-80, heartbeat rate). Don’t worry too much about that. Just don’t play anything too slow or too energetic.”

Dr. Karageorghis' research supports: “...pre-task music has been shown to optimise arousal, facilitate task-relevant imagery and improve performance in simple motoric tasks.” Meaning: music can be taken advantage of in your team’s warm-up. Odds are you are already doing this, but are you really considering the type of music being played and the pre-practice timeline?

At the end of practice, take some time to cool down physically and mentally with some relaxing music. You can use this time to have the team stretch, reflect on practice and update them on any necessary information for the days ahead. This cool down period will leave the team calm, relaxed and ready for a good night’s rest. With sleep being the number one recovery tool for student-athletes, this approach should not be overlooked. (If you are truly interested in the bpm, beats per minute, for a song I would suggest you check out the website, Get Song BPM, where you can search any song and find its bpm.)

Conclusion

There is a lot of research out there surrounding the effects of music within sport. Take some time to talk with your team about which music positively affects them and see how you can incorporate it more into your team’s lifts, practice and competition. “The pre-eminent music psychologist John Sloboda (2008) asserted that there is no ‘vitamin model’ that associates a prescribed psychological effect for a given piece of music. Music's influence is entirely contingent upon the listening context and the experiences and preferences of the listener.” Meaning every student-athlete and thus every team is affected differently by music. Through trial and error, find what works best for your team so you can take full advantage of the magic of music.

Last Knowledge Nugget

As I was researching Dr. Karageorghis, I noticed he is most recently involved in a study on stimulations brought by a combination of music and video. “Such work is oriented towards enhancing people's sensory experiences during physical activity, with a view to increasing exercise adherence and promoting public health.” While there is no data on this study yet, you could test it with your own team by playing music videos before/after practice to see if the positive effects are enhanced.